Outsourced staff to show council their 'true feelings'

Tony Moore

Angry and demoralised Brisbane City Council IT workers who will lose their jobs to an Indian company will protest at Tuesday’s Council meeting to let councillors know their ‘‘true feelings’’.

Brisbane City Council confirmed on Thursday it would outsource 55 IT jobs to HCL, an IT company based in India.

The final decision will be taken at Tuesday’s full Brisbane City Council meeting.

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Australian Services Union branch secretary Jennifer Thomas said the IT staff were ‘‘absolutely demoralised’’ after learning most of the 55 workers would lose their jobs.

‘‘We are doing actions on Tuesday where members can send messages to their local councillor about this issue,’’ she said.

Ms Thomas said Brisbane City Council had to be ordered by the Industrial Commission to show the staff the figures from overseas companies so they could prepare an opposing tender.

‘‘That only occurred in the last week or so and when the staff saw the prices, there was no way they could compete with those outsourced firms,’’ she said.

‘‘There is just no point. We just can’t compete with foreign ownership.’’

She said the difference in price was ‘‘significant’’.

‘‘I mean we are talking major, millions of dollars.’’

Council’s Finance Committee chairman Cr Julian Simmonds said Thursday the outsourcing would save $7.9 million over five years.

Ms Thomas said she doubted many of the IT staff would find similar positions within Brisbane City Council, despite the administration’s good intentions, because IT skills were specialised.

‘‘When you are talking about re-training, you are actually talking about changing your entire career,’’ she said.

‘‘I know from that from the meetings that were held yesterday there is anger about how the whole process has been handled.’’

She acknowledged that HCL had offices in Melbourne, Sydney and hoped to expand their office in Brisbane.

However Ms Thomas said in order to achieve the savings the council expected, much of the work would have to be done overseas.

Ms Thomas said the council had consulted closely with the unions, except on the final stage since Christmas when the final outsourcing alternatives were put together.

Cr Simmonds said on Thursday Brisbane City Council had awarded the contract to HCL Australia, and it was up to that firm to decide where the work was completed.

"I mean, they are a global company, so you would expect that they do some level of it, but how much they do is a question for them, he said."

"HCL Australia ... is based in Sydney.’’

"They have a presence here in Brisbane which they are looking to beef up if they are successful with this contract, as they have been.’’

HCL’s Australian clients include the New South Wales government, VicRoads, Coles, Woolworths, Target, transport logistics company Veolia, Aurora Energy and the RACV.

116 comments

Great, now the experience most Australians have had when dealing with the Tel$tra call centre is available to Brisbane ratepayers. They can not only enjoy 'communicating' with uneducated and virtually unintelligible speakers of gobbledegook but they can rest assured that any personal privacy they might once have had will now be negated with all personal information being freely accessible to any lowlife operator of offshore telemarketing centres..

Commenter

Yes Minister

Location

Woop Woop

Date and time

February 22, 2013, 4:14AM

I think it's ok to argue against outsourcing or privatisation but adding it with a large tinge of racism is unnecessary. Not even all Australians speak the same accent.

Commenter

undefined

Date and time

February 22, 2013, 6:40AM

You are so bloody right, using an Aussie vernacular . My wife and I are in our late years, our hearing is not the best . We well know the frustrations we have when dealing with these people. We had a case where it was impossible to understand what the foreign person was saying , so we asked to be passed over to a supervisor hoping we could understand them better, Unfortunately the supervisor was worse. I sometimes wonder if the powers to be use these people that can not be understood as a way of you giving up and not having your problem solved, that generally happens in many cases

Commenter

Alexand

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

February 22, 2013, 7:15AM

Yes Minister, you talk of these people who are unintelligible yet you obviously can't read. Firstly, the article clearly states that these are obviously "back of house" jobs, meaning that the general public will not have direct contact with workers in this new company. Secondly, the company has a base in Sydney too. There may well be many of these jobs sent offshort but that is nature of the IT industry in the world we live in today. It's never nice to hear of people losing jobs but for a $7.9M saving, this has to be considered. As a ratepayer, I'm happy with this decision.

Commenter

Tarquin

Location

Hamilton Hill

Date and time

February 22, 2013, 7:16AM

By far the most blatant 'racism' here is that practiced by entities like Tel$tra, Optu$, Suncorp, BCC et al. Organizations who consider it fair enough to earn their income in Australia but who choose to employ offshore staff (with all the communication / privacy issues entailed) should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. Note that I'm not suggesting those who can't communicate effectively in the Australian dialect of english should be unemployable, but rather that persons appointed to public contact positions should speak the language of the country (namely the Australian dialect of english. Anyone else should be employed in situations where their lack of comprehension doesn't cause untold difficulties for the majority of Australians.

Commenter

Yes Minister

Location

Woop Woop

Date and time

February 22, 2013, 7:59AM

Tarquin don't spend the money to you see it. Outsourcing to save money generally fails. Plenty of studies to back it up. Also you need to manage it closely, otherwise they will charge you blind for every little thing. Shame BCC understand neither of those.

It will certainly be cheaper on paper just reality will be different.

Commenter

cynic city

Date and time

February 22, 2013, 8:39AM

They are IT jobs, not call centre jobs. The public won't be speaking to the Indian staff.

Many "commodity" IT jobs are going to India / Phillipines / Indonesia, both public and private. Get used to it.

Commenter

Frank

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

February 22, 2013, 8:53AM

Lol. The public won't be speaking to the overseas staff, but BCC will... Incident rates will drop rapidly as BCC staff concludes logging tickets is moot, they probably won't understand what the overseas staff is saying, and will eventually give up. HCL will deliver their SLA's and continue to cash in. At least as a public person you can move your business elsewhere. BCC staff can only quit their jobs. That would be another saving for BCC though. It's a fantastic win-win deal for BCC and HCL. Maybe we'll see a BCCP coming soon. (Brisbane City Council for the People)

Commenter

Olger

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

February 22, 2013, 11:45AM

I don't see anything racist in what the minister has said. I've had Indian friends over the last 30 odd years, some of them Australian Indians, some Australianised, some most definitely not, some born here, some having just arrived. I have always had trouble understanding them when they speak English when they first arrive here and generally don't understand them on the phone to the point I don't answer the phone anymore to international calls and private numbers.

I still can't understand how outsourcing government services to foreign countries in any way helps the community here. Oh yeah they'll say that they save money that can be spent on other areas yet as others posted it rarely happens and they get stuck with a 5 year contract with exclusivity for resigning 2 more times and the usual court battles due to overbilling and rorting the fine points of payment within the contract.

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